Why no news is bad news: Fleet Street editors join forces to proclaim virtues of the national press

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I've often thought that the national newspaper industry does a terrible job of marketing itself.

The level of internecine warfare on Fleet Street is such that national newspapers are usually too busy trying to kill each other to bother clubbing to together to promote their shared interests.

So it was heartening to see Newsworks (the old Newspaper Marketing Agency) attempt to address this with the Shift conference on Monday at the British Library. The main focus was on the value of advertising in the nationals, but this video from newspaper editors – extolling the virtues of the natonal press – is worth a watch.

I still find it amazing that for around £1 I can purchase the collected efforts of (up to) 500 highly-trained journalists who have been collectively working around the clock to provide me with a summary of that day's events from the UK and around the world digested into a beautifully-produced written account.

The result is a daily wonder – whether you consume it in print, on your iPad, via mobile or online.

We really should cherish our national (and regional) newspapers and use them or lose them as the editors and celebrity columnists in the somewhat cheesey video below point out: